Free software

Like the title says, what software has blown your mind and is free.

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As per title.

Boss has been putting me under serious pressure to remove the license agreement text from some open-source software we use because he doesn't want the client to know that it's free. Never mind that removing the license is a breach of said license.

I've held up so far with arguments varying from "I don't know how..." to "that's illegal, and as a coder myself I won't remove attribution from someone else's code so you can make more free money from it!"

He tries to justify it by saying "we're paying for server costs!" and "what are the chances of {software creator} finding out really?"

Recently stumbled upon this place, I wanted to share my experience that turned me into the bitter jaded engineer I am today. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I was a newbie, 6 months into the job, I'd been handed a case, fairly simple by the looks of things, should be a simple re-setup of their configuration files so I call up the chap.

Customer: Ahhhhh Hello Herr KodaanUnstoppable, I have been expecting your call

Me: Good Morning Mr Customer, how are you today?

Customer: I am most relaxed, I went snow boarding over the weekend you see.

Anyhoo, I'll save you the whole story but we were getting on like a house on fire, he asked me to call him by his first name which was very uncommon at the time. However, things took a dark turn.

Me: Okay, so if you download this piece of software I can gain access to your system with you now and we can get the resolution implemented.

Customer: WHY DO I NEED TO ALWAYS BE DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE?!

Me: If you just download it, it's free and we can get this issue resolved.

Customer (doesn't want to hear any of this): WHY?! WHY?! You think all I can do is afford to download this expensive software? You are the worst, this is how you make your money, you should be fired. etc etc.

I lost track of how long this went on for, my manager claims that I just sat there apologizing over and over until I finally snapped.

Me: Right, listen to me, I will send over a guide as you're unwilling to download free software. click

I begin working on the guide, it's got screenshots, helpful tips, took me 3 hours to write it all up, all the while I'm getting pings from our Customer Facing teams saying that I've really upset this customer and they're trying to get through to my manager. Eventually I hear my manager get called and he says "Ahhh yes, this customer threatened my engineer so he's doing things differently this time" whilst giving me a PM to call up the customer.

Customer: Ahhhh good, finally, I trust you have my solution?

Me: I most certainly do, I'm set to email it to you now and this'll be the last time we speak.

Customer: Wait one moment please I hear him move into a second room I want you to know, I know people in your company, I can get you fired if this solution doesn't work, I will ensure you never work again.

Me (By this time I've had enough): Okay, please feel free to raise any concerns you may have with my manager as you know him so well.

Customer: Oh believe me, I will do.

Anyhoo, I send over the document, should take around 4-5 hours to implement the changes, within 25 minutes I get a call.

Customer: IT ISN'T WORKING. I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER NOW!

Me: Okay. (At this stage I transferred the call to my manager, I'm not entirely sure what happened but my manager then called me into one of our training rooms)

Manager: Okay, so, tomorrow we've agreed to one big call, you, me, your mentor, the customer and his manager. How certain are you about your solution?

Me: 100%, I'll implement it if I have too.

Manager: Good chap.

The next morning, I get to work super early, double and triple check my solution, air tight. We all gather for the call, I'm quite literally s****** myself at this stage, he joins after his manager.

Customer: So, KodaanUnstoppable, show me this masterful solution.

Me: Happy to do so.

And so begins what I expect to be the longest 4-5 hours of my life, but imagine my surprise, within 5 minutes the system starts working again. Step 2 was to engage the config file, turns out he hadn't done that at all.

Me: And we're back (I honestly wished I'd said something funnier but I was really tired)

Customer: THIS IS A CONSPIRACY! YOU'RE TRYING TO GET ME FIRED.

Me (To this day my finest moment): You mean like you tried to get me fired?

Customer Manager: Okay, okay, I think there is some bad blood here, we shall end the call now.

Call ends, my manager comes up to me, smile from ear to ear.

Manager: I'm proud of you, chap. (he called everyone chap)

Long story short, I stayed at this company for going on 6 years, I'm now actively involved in training our new recruits. Every 6 months I retell this story as an example of no matter how much they shout, you can't get fired. As for the customer? He still works for the company, I know this as our system won't assign tickets from him to me following this, apparently I'm still trying to get him fired.

Thank you for reading, if you want more let me know, I have many many more.

TL:DR - Customer and I get on great, ask them to download free software, he goes bananas, threatens to fire me. I spend 3 hours crafting them a solution guide, ask customer to implement it. Customer says it doesn't work, threatens again to have me fired. Enter a massive joint call between managers, I implement the solution, turns out the customer didn't do basic stuff. He accuses me of trying to get him fired.

Edit - So this blew up! The joys of having to work, I wanna thank everyone for the awards, super kind and generous of you all. Also to all the comments, I hope I hit them all, if I missed you, I'm sorry! I'll bring you cake!